Mayor honors officer for saving woman's life

Gunshot wound had nicked woman's femoral artery

This past October a police officer came upon a woman bleeding from the leg as the result of a gunshot wound. That officer used a tourniquet to help save the woman’s life, as the bullet had severed her femoral artery.

O’Guin responded to a call in 2013 that a woman had sustained a gunshot wound while removing a gun from a glove compartment of a car. With the use of a tourniquet on the woman’s leg, the bleeding was controlled and she was taken to University of New Mexico Hospital.

O’Guin visited the woman the day after the incident. She was in intensive care but recovering from the wound.

The femoral artery is one of the major arteries in the human body in the thigh and extends from the abdomen down to the legs.